JXHQ: Just A Bad Day
by Mrs.Volterra
Summary: JokerXHarley oneshot on Harley Quinn after a severe beating from her beloved Joker. Warning for abuse. Read and review!


**AN: This is meant to be a darker fic with Harley Quinn about the aftermath of a beating from her beloved Joker. I was listening to 'Wait' by M83 and I could just see Harley sliding down the brick wall with tears streaming out of her eyes and I could feel the desperation and sadness as she sat there. So yeah, that's the song that inspired me. It's beautiful. You should listen to it.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, however, DC does, I merely took their characters and went with it.**

**Anyways, please read and enjoy, then review. Thank you!**

He had hurt her. Again.

Harley slid to a sitting position against the brick wall, drained and exhausted. Strands of long, blonde hair stuck to her forehead, held fast by the sweat that made her battered body glisten. Her huge blue eyes were slipping closed as defeat welcomed her into its embrace. She swallowed, a lump growing in her throat. Her lip wobbled, and a single tear made its way down her greasepaint-coated cheek, leaving a gray trail from her makeup. She tried to stop, mustering up the strength to wipe the tear away, but more followed, and soon she was crying pitifully, sobs wracking her small body.

Her harlequin suit was torn to pieces, but not from Batman or any other enemy. It was from her Puddin'. An image of him standing above her, face livid, as he began his beating, flashed through her mind.

The night had been the worst, leaving her with cracked ribs, bruised and bloody skin, fractured limbs, and a broken heart. The sad thing was, she didn't know what she had done. She had made sure everything was running smoothly, according to plan, laughed at every single one of his goddamned jokes, and everything at 'home' was clean, in order, and the food was wonderful.

He had even been sweet, during the heist. The store manager had a gun on her, a expression terrified, and her Puddin' had shot him immediately. She recalled the worry that shadowed his dark eyes…

No, he was never worried about her. He just wanted to be the one to end Harley's life. And tonight, he had come dangerously close.

_His hands clenched around her delicate throat tightly, the long, artistic fingers pushing out any air supply she had. Fury flashed brightly in his emerald eyes. She couldn't struggle. His earlier beating had left her weak and defenseless. She squeezed her eyes shut, hot tears rolling out the sides and falling down her cheeks._

_"Look at me!" He had snarled, shaking her in his grasp. Unwillingly, she opened her eyes and stared at him, without fear or shame. She would die with dignity. He thought he had broken her, but he hadn't. He never would._

_Black started to cloud her vision, darkening first around the edges and seeping into the center. His face, pale and harsh, would be the last thing she ever saw…_

Harley didn't think she was dead. Maybe she was, maybe this was hell, but she was almost positive she was alive and this was real. After all, hell had more fire and a whole lot of people groaning pitifully.

She wondered if he'd let go voluntarily. Maybe one of the henchmen or Batman had stopped him. There was no way the Joker would have let her live. She had witnessed the pure, psychotic rage herself. He had been brutal and relentless.

In the back of the former psychiatrist's mind, she wished he had killed her. She did not have the strength to ever leave him, but the only thing that would take her away from him was death. He was like an addiction, a drug. He was toxic. She could never get enough of him, but at the same time, he was killing her, ripping her apart from the inside out.

"Goddammit…" She cried, clawing at her face. "Why, oh God, why? What did I do to deserve all of this?" She tried to get up, but her ribs and leg denied her this simple function. So she began to crawl pathetically, whimpering softly. Where was she? Was this the alley behind their current hideout? It was, she realized.

Harley Quinn curled into a ball, rocking back and forth. Sadness came in a wave, drowning her in sorrow. "I just want to die." She whispered, grimacing in pain.

"Come on, Mistah J!" The blonde started to scream, her voice hoarse from the choking incident. "Fucking kill me already, don't you have the balls? Shoot me, whatever, I don't care, I can't go on like this!" There was no response. "Coward! Why won't you just stop? I'm sick of these games. I'm sick of living!" She was screaming incoherently. She stopped abruptly when the door opened.

He looked tired, his hair limp and clumped with blood. His shirt was untucked and even from where she was she could smell the booze he had consumed. He would not look at her. Harley felt her heart break a little more. em Don't feel sorry for the bastard/em she told herself. He'd put her through hell and dragged her back by the hair.

She watched him swallow, his white Adam's apple bobbing as he came closer, gaze still cast to the side. "You can come in now…" His tone was low and sounded strained. She flinched away from him but responded.

"I can't." She snapped. "I can barely move!" She shouted.

So his long, lean arms scooped her up into his chest, gentle and steady. He cradled her like a baby, muttering nonsense into her ear. Sweet nothings. Promises he would not and could not uphold, promises she refused to believe anymore.

"Let me go, J. Please." Her request was quiet, devoid of her previous fury.

He shook his head, a wry smile coming to his scarlet lips. "Can't do that, Harley-girl. I gotta patch up my pretty little baby, don't I?"

Harley pushed him away. "Don't-"

The clown grabbed her chin, turning it up towards him as his emerald green eyes finally locked onto her blue ones. "Look at me." He placed a soft kiss on her cracked lips, then pulled away. "You know Daddy loses his temper with his little girl sometimes. He doesn't mean it."

"That doesn't make it okay."

He frowned, corners of that scarlet mouth pulling down. She knew that mouth so well, knew what happened when it was curving into a smile, knew how it felt when it traversed every inch of her body. She knew his every expression, could read the way he was feeling.

"You like it." He scoffed, but his grip on her jaw tightened and she knew he felt a tiny inkling of guilt, in his tar black soul.

"Do what you want, _Daddy_." She simpered, tone sharp and biting, and his eyes flashed. "It's not like I can ever stop you anyways."

"Harley-girl, that attitude is going to put you in places you don't like." The villain chided, and shook his head again. A sigh. His hand left her face and instead began to caress her blonde locks. "My silly little baby." He stilled for a moment. "Did you think I was really going to do it tonight?" His voice was quiet.

She paused. "You mean kill me?" He nodded. "I don't know. I thought I had died when everything went black, and my last thought was that at least you were the one to end my life."

"And why is that?"

"If anyone had the right to kill me, it would be you."

The Joker was silent, and Harley studied the man she loved for a moment. The usually vibrant green hair was curling around his marble white skin, the bloodred lips pursed in thought. His prominent nose, sharp cheekbones, and chiseled jaw. And of course, the eyes, always the eyes, that had reeled her in from the very beginning. She touched his beautiful face, resting her hand against his cheek, surprised when she realized it was cool since he was typically running a temperature higher than the average person. He leaned into her palm, looking sad. Her heart clenched.

She pressed her mouth against his. "Don't be unhappy, Puddin'."

He sighed and smiled. "I'm always happy, baby."

"Let's go inside." She suggested, forgetting her pain, only thinking of his. Beaten within an inch of her life, and yet she still returned to him. He needed her, of course. He just got mad sometimes, and it was up to her to see him through the rough days. "It'll be okay, Mistah J." She soothed, fighting back a grimace as a bolt of agony shot through her body, a sharp reminder of the wounds she still bore.

"We'll put Harley Quinn back together again." A cruel nursery rhyme whose main character mirrored her. She would always be broken, sometimes physically, but always mentally. She had thought he'd never break her, but he had. And she liked it. So no matter what the doctors did, they couldn't piece her back into Harleen Quinzel. Once she was dragged off the wall of sanity by the Joker, she couldn't change her mind and return to the 'perfect', em normal /em woman she had been. But she wouldn't have it any other way.

"You're a stupid, useless piece of work, Harls," He told her as he bandaged the injuries he had inflicted upon her. "I don't know why I keep you around."

Maybe in the dark shadows of his heart, he knew. Maybe he knew he needed his little harlequin, who bounced back from everything, no matter what. Maybe he knew that she completed him, made him have more purpose. There were Bats to be plotted against and people to kill, but there had to be something beyond that. She filled in the missing parts of his life. She had seen him at his worst, and stood beside him all the same.

She took the words silently, but the love remained in her big, blue eyes.

"Because nothing could tear me away from you." She grinned mischievously. "You probably couldn't get rid of me if you tried."

She beaten and bruised, but pain was temporary, as he always said. She forgave him, because he forgave her for being stupid and uncreative and flawed. She would forget, in time, but wasn't that the reason he loved her, in his own twisted way? The Joker depended on her resilience. He needed her total accepting nature, and her faithfulness.

The clowns' gazes left each other and he continued to bandage up the small blonde in his arms.

It was just a bad day, not a bad life.

**AN: We can all sugar coat it as much as we want, but the truth is, the Joker does things to Harley that would be considered by normal society as abuse, physical and emotional. However, this is no normal relationship, and it seems like she's still very happy with him, despite all that she endures. They have many bad moments, but also several good moments. I am in no way condoning his behavior, but you have to look at it and realize that they basically complete each other. Without Joker, Harley would be lost, and perhaps vice versa. Ugh, I don't know. It's hard to define and defend their relationship without sounding like I think it's okay for him to abuse her. It's not.**

**Maybe you all could tell me what you think of them together (along with your feedback! HINT HINT!), so I could write them better.**

**Also, remember how Harley said she didn't understand why he was so angry, because she had done everything right, and that he had even saved her from being shot? Well, that was the reason the Joker was beating her. I think Harley is his weakness and he hates it when he realizes he cares for her. So yeah.**

**As always, thank you for reading. Check out my profile for more JokerXHarley stories. Love you all! (:**


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